


eumoirous

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Lies, M/M, Reyes Vidal Is Basically Archangel-Era Garrus For A Time, Truth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 14:50:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10788909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: “Have I ever told you what I used to do in the Milky Way?”Scott didn’t answer immediately. Pressing his lips together, he shook his head. He even did Reyes the courtesy of not appearing too eager at the opening Reyes had left for him. “You know you haven’t.”





	eumoirous

**I**

“I’m just a pilot,” he said, smooth, confident. His tone conveyed experience and ease and it was enough to get the asari to loosen her grip on the gun in her hand. All of his composure implied he’d been on the business end of a weapon so many times, that this didn’t scare him anymore. It would make anyone question themselves. That was by design. “But I’m sure between us we can resolve this to everyone’s satisfaction.”

“You’re not our regular guy.” She tilted her chin up, blue skin sparkling under the lights of the warehouse around them.

Reyes grinned. Nothing got past this woman. “No, I’m much better. But the important thing is your red sand is present and accounted for. All of it.” He raised his arm, his omnitool flickering to life around his forearm. “As you shall soon see. Transferring manifest now.”

“So what happened to him?” the asari asked as her omnitool lit up in response and went through the process of verifying the file for her. “Our guy?”

_He has a name,_ Reyes thought, _and a life to go with it. Or he did_. “He’s disappeared.” His eyes caught her gaze and held it. Still, he conveyed disinterest. “It’s all very mysterious. Hopefully he’ll turn up. But good thing I’m around to pick up the slack in the meantime.” _He’s probably dead thanks to you, but I can’t know that for sure, can I?_

“Good thing,” the asari answered, dubious, but she accepted it because she was arrogant and he intended to be no one worth concerning herself with. “Everything seems to be in order anyway.”

Of course it was. Reyes knew what he was doing. If you leveraged pressure against the right people, you ended up in all sorts of interesting places. “I should hope so,” Reyes said, bright and cheery, both like and unlike himself. He was, generally, a bright and cheery guy—at least in his own opinion. But right now he was neither of those things where it counted. “I like to believe I’m very good at my job.”

Though he laid on as much charm as he dared, she still merely rolled her eyes at him. “Good for you. Now get out of here, huh?”

She flicked a credit chit at him, one he caught between deft fingers. Slipping it into his pocket, he considered telling her to fuck off for her presumption.

Instead, he inclined his head and hooked his thumb over his shoulder as he backed toward his shuttle. His eyes never left her face and it wasn’t until she turned away with a grudging huff that he allowed himself to do the same. The last he knew of her, she was snapping orders at gang members even more her junior. As expected, they all scurried to do her bidding, giving her a taste for power she’d probably never lose.

Striding up the ramp and into the body of the shuttle, he banged on the wall outside the cockpit. “Got it,” Hilla called from inside, her voice quick and mellifluous and distant through the thick metal. He reached one of the jump seats as she took to the air and strapped himself in just as the thrusters engaged.

The back of his head thudded against the scanty cushioning offered by the headrest.

Another job well done.

“Flight trajectory stable,” Hilla said over comms. “Cockpit is yours, Vidal.”

“Just as it should be,” he said, quiet, to himself. A cockpit was the closest thing to a home Reyes had. As much as he trusted Hilla with that home, he trusted himself even more.

Once they were safely docked back at Independence, one of the larger colonies in the Terminus systems and poorly named, Reyes’s breathing came easier. It always did. Finding his way back to Colonial Security still felt right. Despite everything.

Now the real work began, far less glamorous than traipsing about in the scummy Terminus underbelly, but even more vital. He threw the credit chit into evidence along with every scan he’d gotten from the local gang’s base of operations. DNA, facial identification, the works. Along with a written record of the drop, this made up the bulk of what Reyes did.

For whatever _good_ it did.

The day anyone gave a damn was the day Reyes would keel over and die of shock.

Encrypting and preparing his reports for submission, Reyes sighed. The Alliance didn’t give a shit about the Terminus systems or the colonies that scratched out meager livings there despite gangsters, slavers, and bounty hunters constantly sniffing around for weakness. No one cared. Reyes could shout himself into an early grave and he still wouldn’t garner more than token interest from the authorities whose job it was to oversee colonists’ safety.

He would know. Technically, he was the authorities and it was true, sure as hell, that no one listened to him. Or anyone else who tried to accomplish anything worth doing out here either. There was a joke among colonists, a reminder, and every unchecked incident only proved it more true. ‘The Terminus systems: where good people go to be forgotten.’

Reyes had always hated that, the self-defeating way the colonists bandied it about. He hated nothing more than unproductive things.

So, yeah. He was a pilot, but that wasn’t all he was. The colonists might do nothing to help themselves, but Reyes wouldn’t turn over and give up. The Terminus systems, the Alliance? He was grateful to them in a way. Before, he really was just a pilot. But they’d made him into something both more and less than what he was. A pilot and a lawman, as much of one as could be found in the colonies anyway. Sneak might have fit, too, or spy.

He was just afraid of what all those bits of more and less were beginning to entail. Drug-peddling asari? That was a new one, even for him.

And who knew where else the colonies would take him.

**II**

You could find a shady bar in every colony you visited and every last one of them looked like they came out of the same damned vid. If Reyes were more paranoid, he’d call it a conspiracy. Underlit, smoky, a brutish bartender staring gimlet-eyed over the crowd of losers throwing their credits away on a few hours’ reprieve from the daily hell of living out here. Step into one and you’ve stepped into all of them.

Even the sticky, liquor-coated floor was the same. Reyes wanted to hate it, but he merely found these forays into exhilarating. This was where the real work was accomplished—or could be, if one played their cards right.

The Alliance’s indifference taught him that.

Good thing Reyes was a consummate card player. He knew how to make cards sing and dance to his tune. Life had taught him that one, not the Alliance.

He’d never been to Heroic Challenges before—and why did so many of these colonies have such optimistic names anyway, that seemed to Reyes to be asking for trouble—but that didn’t mean he couldn’t size them up with ease all the same. People were people were people everywhere you went.

Threading his way through a handful of dented, dingy tables, he reached the bar. “Mount Milgrom,” he said, “a double, please.”

“Big roller we got here,” the bartender answered, as if on cue. Reyes couldn’t have planned that better himself. The comment drew the attention of several of the individuals arrayed along the length of the bar top, their eyebrows lifting in—ha—challenge. Malignant curiosity drove them all, but Reyes wasn’t concerned. If push came to shove, Reyes had tricks up his sleeve. “You might be confusing the Challenges for the Citadel, friend.”

“Please.” The places out here in the Systems tended not to have omnitool to omnitool transfer technology, but credit chits still worked and allowed for a dramatic flair that Reyes wasn’t above finding pleasing. Slapping his hand down on the bar, cognizant of the waxy quality of the surface and doing his damnedest to hide a disgusted grimace, he leaned toward the bartender. “Indulge a weary traveler his whims.” Lifting his hand, he left behind a flat, rectangular indication that he had money to waste. “I can make it worth your while.”

The bartender eyed it, a little hungry, and sneered with annoyance at being that kind of person. But, grumbling, he twisted and stomped away and returned rather more quickly that Reyes had expected with the bottle and a glass. He measured out the whisky and slid the result toward Reyes.

“Cheers,” Reyes said, pleasanter than the man deserved, and turned, bracing his elbows against the bar. He was to meet… someone. He would know him, he’d been told, by the gray miner’s coveralls he wore and the faded orange of poorly dyed hair. Nobody yet stood out as matching that description, but the hour was early and Reyes had all the time in the world.

At least he could present himself that way.

The obvious scrutiny of multiple people crawled like an itch down his spine. Dragging his attention toward them, he offered a wink and a smile, raised his glass in acknowledgment and turned his attention elsewhere again. Likely, one or more of them thought they could take him.

The pistols in his sleeve and at his side and the knife in his boot said otherwise, but let them try. His silhouette may not have been an intimidating one, but that did not make him any less of a threat.

He almost hoped they’d try. Fewer unscrupulous people in the universe wouldn’t be a bad thing. And teaching them some manners would be a joy.

His grin turned sharp as he looked down into his glass, a subtle enough signal to most people, and hopefully for them, too.

The whisky really wasn’t terrible. Not worth the cost, of course, but there were few things that were when it came down to it.

The man he was looking for finally stepped into the barroom. His contact hadn’t mentioned he was a squirrelly one, his eyes darting around the place while his hands chafed his elbows. Was that normal for him? Or was he that nervous about meeting Reyes?

Nobody paid him any mind. Hopefully that was a good sign.

Pushing himself away from the bar, he strode toward the man. Hendricks was his name, not that Reyes cared to remember it. If not for the job, he’d have liked to forget it entirely.

“Hello, old friend,” he said, clasping Hendricks by the shoulder and guiding him toward a shady corner in the back. Quickly, he scoped out a table and pushed Hendricks toward one side of the booth. “It’s so very good to see you.”

When he stumbled, Reyes held tight to the meat of his upper arm. A little flabby for a man who worked in mining, but who was Reyes to judge?

“We have so much to discuss,” Reyes said, broad, taking the seat across from Hendricks. His knee jostled the table when he crossed his leg, the loud, thumping sound swallowed by the surrounding din. Hendricks, true to form, flinched.

Never again, with this man. Too jumpy.

Hand slipping down his flight suit, Reyes engaged a portable sound dampener he kept in his pocket. “A little bird has told me more than mining is happening in your workplace, Kendricks.”

“Sounds like a little bird has a big beak,” Hendricks answered, trying for bold and missing by a few light years. He still managed to find a bit of spine in there somewhere though. Good for him. Even if he did just say nearly the most inane thing Reyes had ever heard. “What do you know?”

What Reyes parsed from that was: _how much is this gonna cost me?_

“A lot,” Reyes answered, “about many things.”

Hendricks rolled his eyes. His voice wavered as he tried to strengthen that spine he was trying to grow. “That’s great, buddy. You mind sharing or did I come out here for no reason?”

His omnitool glowed orange in the dimness. The light it cast was almost sickly and did nothing to improve Hendricks’s bland features. “Encrypted files. For your boss. She’ll be most interested in their contents, I’m sure.”

“Yeah?” Kendricks asked. “Says who?”

“Me. Just now.” The Mount Milgrom burned as Reyes downed the rest of it. Probably he should have savored it. Frankly, he didn’t care. He wouldn’t for a long time, but he didn’t know that yet. “She will want to know about this.”

Kendricks rolled his eyes and engaged his own omnitool. He sat there, quiet, poring over the data Reyes had given to him. And this, this was why Reyes chose him. He wasn’t much of a criminal yet, but he was smart enough to keep a neutral face as he realized his job just got a lot more complicated.

“Do you understand now, Kendricks?” he asked, a bit impatient. Reyes’s nerves sang with that impatience, pushing through every inch of him and demanding forward progress now. He wanted everything to happen immediately. Every time he did this sort of thing, that happened. One day, perhaps he’d learn to hold back more.

“Yeah.” His eyes, pale brown and burnished by his omnitool’s orange glow, lit curiously as hunger and ambition filled them. “So what do you want for this? Becca doesn’t just hand out memberships, you know?”

“I’m not interested in joining your little club. Free agency is more my speed.”

“I could authorize a credit transfer,” he admitted, apparently fine with letting slights go when this much was on the line. That was a good thing for loyal lieutenants, even if they were a little jumpy. “This is legit enough to be worth our time and money.”

It was always time and money with gangs. More time, more money. The third leg was power, but that wasn’t in play here yet, not really. But thanks to Reyes, it might be. Or rather, Becca would believe power was an option.

What she did with this information was up to her. If she was the right kind of smart, she’d forget she ever saw it.

Gang leaders were rarely the right kind of smart.

So it would play out one of three ways, four if he was lucky. She’d attack her rival and win, destroying one of Heroic Challenges problems. Or the reverse would happen, same result. They might cripple one another in the fighting, diminishing each of them to shadows of their former ‘glory.’ Maybe then local law enforcement would actually clean up the mess. Either way, they’d be out of commission for a while. Order would prevail, at least for a short time.

In the best of all possible worlds, they annihilated one another all by themselves. Reyes was angling for that, still had a few tricks up his sleeve in the hopes of pushing it that way, but he couldn’t guarantee it.

“I don’t want a credit transfer,” Reyes said. Credit transfers meant paper trails, but he wasn’t doing this for money regardless. “I want a cut of future ventures on Heroic Challenges.”

Hendricks initiated a credit transfer anyway, tapping pointedly at his omnitool and making a whole new world of work for Reyes. Not that Reyes wasn’t expecting it—he’d learned to expect everything—but it would have been nice to have been listened to for once. “I don’t know if I can do that,” he answered. “But I’ll take it to Becca. You keep this up, she might be willing.”

Reyes wanted to argue, but arguing meant drawing attention to himself and he intended to be out of this system as soon as he got back to the docks. There was just no point. There was no ‘keeping up’ in his or their future.

And honestly, he didn’t even want the cut really. He just didn’t want Hendricks to grow suspicious of Reyes’s supposed altruism. Might make him think about why anyone would just give them this much dirt on their competition and that was the last thing Reyes wanted. “You work for a generous organization.”

Hendricks leveled an unamused stare at Reyes. Too bad it was undermined by all that fidgeting he was doing. It was almost good, but almost never counted. Not on this world or any other. One day, he’d fit inside his skin a little better and maybe then he’d be formidable. “We’re just scratching out a living on this hellhole like everyone else.”

Anger, genuine and surprisingly violent, licked through his chest at that proclamation. Hendricks was right, everyone _was_ ‘just scratching out a living on this hellhole.’ But most of them weren’t beating innocent bystanders and demanding recompense for the occasions when they didn’t do just that. They weren’t draining resources away from everyone else for a little extra air conditioning and a better class of drink or whatever it was they chose to do with all that influence they were accruing for themselves.

No one else was doing much good for one another, true, but at least they weren’t causing harm.

Reyes disengaged the sound dampener. “Goodbye, Hendricks. It was good seeing you.”

A lie, of course, all the way through, a lie.

But a necessary one.

“I’ll be in touch.”

**III**

Join the Andromeda Initiative, the adverts said, promising bright and cheery families with bright and cheery futures on bright and cheery planets. Sun, unspoiled worlds, the clearest water in the universe. That was what the Initiative promised.

Kiosks sprung up like mushrooms overnight.

Suddenly, they were everywhere. Join the Andromeda Initiative. Join the Andromeda Initiative. Join the Andromeda Initiative. Over and over again. Everywhere Reyes went.

And every time he passed one, a chirpy voice invited him to inquire for more information.

He’d had just about enough of it. Standing now in front of one such column, its hologram flickering and blinking, he wondered what was so appealing about this. The Andromeda Initiative was selling a blank slate, but there was no such thing.

But, oh, how Reyes wished there was.

He watched the recruitment spiel a couple of times even so, enough that he began to memorize the script. The man with a little girl on his shoulder while they pointed toward an artist’s rendition of an unexplored world was a nice touch, he supposed. It didn’t work on him, but he could imagine all the twisting hearts that image would produce over the life of the advertisement. Tilting his head, he tried to imagine what it would be like to believe in something that strongly.

But all he could thing was: how could anyone buy into something like this? It was nonsense.

Complete and utter nonsense.

But it was a dream. And Reyes couldn’t fault anyone for having some of those.

Hell, he wasn’t immune to that and he was willing to admit at least that much about it.

But that was all.

**IV**

“Why do you wish to leave the Milky Way, Mr. Vidal?” the doctor—Reyes hadn’t caught his name, but it hardly mattered, did it—asked, his mind clearly half a world away as his stylus tapped rhythmically against his datapad. His attention drifted toward the slatted windows and the perfect, pale blue of the simulated sky outside. If this is what people were like on the Citadel, no wonder the colonies were in such a shit state.

“Adventure,” Reyes answered with more gusto than he truly felt. “A new life. Isn’t that what everyone wants?”

The doctor finally looked at him. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

“Well, it’s not because I have any great love for this galaxy, I can tell you that much.”

The doctor’s eyebrows, both of them, lifted, wrinkling his otherwise smooth, almost youthful forehead. If he didn’t want to pay attention to Reyes, Reyes would _make_ him pay attention. He was far more interesting than that fake projection of daylight the man had installed in his office. “Is that so?” the doctor said after a moment’s pause, probably to collect his thoughts, possibly because he wasn’t expecting the venom that Reyes had allowed to leak into his tone.

“Mmm. Yes. I said it, didn’t I?”

“That you did, Mr. Vidal. Do you want to expand on that a little bit?”

Reyes tilted his head and bit his lip, pretending to ponder the question. No, he didn’t want to expand on it. It was perfectly clear what he meant. “I just mean there’s a lot of baggage for me here. I’d like to make a fresh start, try being nobody for a while. It sounds like fun.”

“This is a huge venture,” the doctor insisted, far too boring for his own good. “You don’t think you’ll regret it? That’s a lot of work to be a nobody and the Milky Way’s a big place. What if it’s not ‘fun?’”

“Can’t be any worse than here on that score.”

“It could be dangerous.”

“I was a cargo pilot in the colonies, Doctor, as well as a law-enforcement officer.” Reyes shook his head. Law enforcement was a strong word for it, but there was enough of a paper trail left behind to support it. And his extracurriculars were so well hidden, he needn’t worry about explaining them to anyone. “There aren’t many places more dangerous than that, especially considering the job I did. I’m well acquainted with risk.”

The doctor pursed his lips and scratched at his chin with his stylus. “That’s true enough, I suppose.”

“Listen, we can be honest with one another, can’t we?” Leaning forward, Reyes smiled and braced his hands against his knees. “I fall somewhere in the middle of every rubric you Initiative shills are using to vet people for this program. And I’ve heard you’re even having trouble finding enough people to fill these arks according to those rubrics. I have sought-after skills and training in multiple, useful disciplines. I’m healthier than your average twenty-seven year old with a genetic sequence one of your geneticists was more than pleased with when she gave me the results. My disposition is pleasant and I have enough drive to handle whatever adversities are thrown at me. Do we really need to go through this bit of playacting to confirm I’m an ideal candidate and you need bodies for this ridiculous scheme?”

Most people, when you pushed them, clammed up and got defensive and pushed back. This guy just sighed and waved his hand through the air. Reyes had anticipated that. Here was a man who didn’t love his job and wanted all the answers given to him on a platter. Reyes could do that for him. “Point taken, Mr. Vidal.”

Reyes inclined his head. Of course his point was taken. It was a good point. “Thank you, Doctor.”

The doctor hummed absently and tapped at his datapad. Dry, he said, “Congratulations, Mr. Vidal. Allow me to be the first to welcome you to the Initiative.”

“I appreciate that.” Rising from his seat, Reyes brushed his palms over his abdomen. Now that it was official, he felt… nothing. He’d imagined—he wasn’t sure what he’d imagined. A sense of relief or accomplishment, perhaps. Everything would be different now. He was taking a step into the unknown. An unformed future stood before him, one that he could shape without the politics and preconceptions of the Milky Way to hinder it.

Things would be better in Andromeda. He felt it. He believed it. They’d be new at least. It wouldn’t be like every place in the Terminus systems in which he’d tried to set down roots and do something only to be blocked by indifference. These people were pioneers and every settler would be important, would get to leave a mark.

At least it was pleasant enough to be recognized as a valuable asset to _someone_. That had certainly never happened before.

“Instructions will be forwarded to your omnitool and personal comm devices.” Looking at Reyes for what might have been the first time, he added, “Good luck out there.”

Reyes smirked at the doctor. Good luck. He’d never had much of that. Pretty much assumed there wouldn’t be much of a change for him on that score even in another galaxy.

But that was okay. He thrived in the face of adversity.

**V**

Reyes didn’t often find himself on the Tempest. Though everyone was perfectly cordial with him when he was invited aboard, it wasn’t his place; both he and they knew it. Scott was about the only one who didn’t seem to notice one way or the other. Or if he did, his desire to allow everyone the privacy of their own opinions led him to pretend ignorance and invent perfectly acceptable and unnecessary reasons for Reyes to be there.

No, that wasn’t fair. Often, Reyes _was_ there for a good reason: helping to follow up on a thread for the Pathfinder’s never-ending mission to discover new and better ways to fight the kett, bringing stray exiles back to the Initiative fold, the outskirts of it anyway, the kind of people who hadn’t fit with Sloane’s vision of this brave, new galaxy, but didn’t fit with the Nexus either…

That sort of thing.

That wasn’t really why Reyes came aboard though, because any chance to see Scott was a chance he’d take and it didn’t matter why or when or how.

Those misdirections of Scott’s were small ones, Reyes supposed, but comforting enough, too. Reyes was certain Scott would have kicked up a fuss if it bothered Reyes to keep the full truth obscure, but since it didn’t, he figured they could allow themselves this small bit of discretionary fantasy, this bid for a veneer of professionalism. The both of them. Together. It made Reyes feel less alone in his own moments of opaqueness.

Scott had given Reyes his blessing—keep what secrets you have to, he’d all but said, just don’t shut me out—and yet Reyes was not relieved. He had been at first, that was true, but now was different. Now it was a year down the line and Scott’s unflagging, unwavering drive had reshaped a whole galaxy to suit his image and why wouldn’t that change Reyes, too?

It was an image Reyes once indulged in for himself. Tame the lawless territories, mold them into something useful for everyone.

Scott did that. And he hadn’t had to lie through his teeth at every opportunity to do so. He hadn’t had to spit acid to get his way.

“Hey,” Scott said, lacing their fingers together, somehow sensing something was up as they lay side-by-side on Scott’s bed. If Reyes was a less generous man, he’d have accused SAM of snitching on him. As it was, he concluded that Scott was just… Scott. And that meant him always knowing when something was wrong enough that Reyes couldn’t subsume it into oblivion. Scott’s datapad was laid on his chest, abandoned, as he looked over at Reyes. “What’s up? I can hear the gears in your head grinding away at something.”

Reyes, who found the ceiling quite a bit more intriguing than it should have been, even more so than the view of space just outside, merely shrugged, head pillowed on his other arm. “My gears are always grinding,” Reyes answered, less innuendo laden than he’d intended it to be. “That’s not so wild a guess to make.”

Scott smiled, apparently pleased with himself. “So it’s true.”

“Maybe.” A grudging answer, but an answer all the same.

“About anything in particular?” And Reyes hated the way he phrased it. Scott never asked him what he was planning or thinking about, not so directly, not unless Reyes had already let him in on the fact that there was some sort of plan to begin with. His way of doing his part in ensuring Reyes got to keep all those secrets Scott was always letting him off the hook for, Reyes guessed.

Reyes twisted onto his side, his temple resting against his knuckles. Their hands remained twined on Scott’s abdomen. His muscles were warm against Reyes’s wrist and up his forearm. Scott was always so warm. It had become a comfort ever since they started this… thing between them.

“I don’t know,” Reyes admitted. And he didn’t, was the thing.

Brow arching, Scott pursed his lips, thoughtful. Now he was the one whose thoughts were grinding away. There was a glint in his eyes, vivid in the light of a challenge, a mystery. Reyes had seen it often enough now. Scott never expressed more joy than when there was a problem to solve. Perhaps Reyes couldn’t blame him, but having it directed his way was intimidating. “Must be a pretty big deal,” Scott said, ponderous, “if even you can’t identify it.”

“We can’t always be in touch with feelings,” Reyes answered, faux-affronted.

“No, I suppose not.” Scott’s eyes just sparkled even more, mischievous and charmed and everything Reyes didn’t deserve from a partner. “God forbid.”

Reyes huffed, Scott’s words poking at him like a sliver trapped under skin, nothing unbearable about it except that it could turn nasty if you didn’t deal with it. It wasn’t Scott’s fault, of course, but a small, petty part of Reyes wanted to blame him for it anyway.

If he hadn’t been who he was, Reyes could be happily running Kadara, no one the wiser about him or his identity, no one to and for whom he felt responsible.

He’d told Scott that he knew who Reyes was. In all the important ways, he knew. When Reyes was measured by his deeds in addition to his words, the calculus came up much more in his favor. And Scott saw that before Reyes had to ask for him to look. His words made a liar of him, a cheat, a scoundrel; his deeds offered a more complex image.

So Scott did know him in all the important ways… 

He _did_. And yet…

“Have I ever told you what I used to do in the Milky Way?”

Scott didn’t answer immediately. Pressing his lips together, he shook his head. He even did Reyes the courtesy of not appearing too eager at the opening Reyes had left for him. “You know you haven’t.”

It wasn’t a condemnation or a gripe. It was just the truth. “There’s no getting anything past you, is there?”

“Some things. I’m not superhuman.” Scott grew distant for a moment, no doubt thinking of his ‘failures.’ Reyes chose to believe that no one in the galaxy could’ve done any better and most—if not all of them—would have done significantly worse.

“Try that with someone who hasn’t seen you fight.” Reyes cleared his throat. He didn’t allow himself to linger on that thought. If he didn’t say this now, he never would. “Anyway, I was… a cargo pilot. And I worked with colonial security in the Terminus systems, too, because it was the Terminus systems and you pulled double duty or you didn’t last long.”

Reyes expected Scott to laugh at him—Reyes working _for_ security instead of against it, it was laughable. Deep down, Reyes was always every bit the smuggler he became in Andromeda. He always had been; he’d just struggled against that in the Milky Way.

But Scott surprised him the way Scott always did. “That must’ve been hard.” He spoke with the genuine seriousness and empathy that he offered to everyone who needed the Pathfinder to be that virtuous and caring. And instead of feeling like Scott was coddling him, he felt… protected, safe.

Trusted.

It was sentimental garbage, those feelings. Scott didn’t have to protect him and Reyes had never valued safety. Still, it got to him, squeezed his heart in a vice grip, clamped its teeth in him and refused to let go. Nobody had been to him what Scott was. Nobody saw Reyes the way Scott did.

“Trying to keep order when there were no resources or official backing?” Reyes said. “Yeah. It was somewhat difficult.”

“Sounds a little like the situation on Kadara.” Sighing, Scott closed his eyes briefly, thoughtful, as he bit his lower lip. After a long moment, he opened his eyes again, finding Reyes’s with ease. “So what’d you do?”

Reyes grimaced. It sounded so tawdry when he tried to form the words, so much less than what it was. And somehow more, too. “I played gangs against one another. Pretended I wanted in or that I was in it for credits. Whatever got them to pay attention long enough for them to believe me.”

Scott laughed, light. “That sounds a little like Kadara, too.” Brushing at the hair that fell into his face, he squeezed Reyes’s hand. “What’s going on, Reyes? Why are you telling me this?”

“Nothing,” and as far as Reyes was concerned, that was the truth. Even if he knew, he wouldn’t have been able to articulate, he didn’t think. “I just—wanted you to know. Not many people do.” It wasn’t something he’d ever told anyone about. Nobody back in the Milky Way ever knew what he was up to by design, not even the people he’d played. And certainly no one here knew a thing about it. Why would they? The past was the past and most people—not just exiles—respected circumspection about it as a rule.

Blank slates and all that. Everyone got one in Andromeda.

Scott’s gaze softened. “Then thank you for trusting me,” he said, a remarkably ridiculous sentiment all things considered. Reyes hadn’t done anything worthy of gratitude here.

Normal people took honesty for granted. They expected it. And their partners happily obliged them and expected it in return.

Then again, Scott wasn’t normal, was he? Nobody who’d accomplished what he did could be. No, Scott always had seen things differently. He valued actions over words. And in that, at least, Reyes hadn’t been such a huge disappointment.

It was the one thing onto which he could grasp and use as evidence that he wasn’t the worst thing to happen to Scott in Andromeda. Metaphorically speaking anyway. There really was no beating the kett on that score. Lucky for him.

“I never told you why I joined the Initiative either,” he asked Scott, “did I?”

Scott smiled again, patient, and pulled Reyes’s hand toward his mouth and brushed a kiss over his palm. “Save a few of your secrets for a rainy day, Reyes. I’ll still be here to listen.”

His way of saying he didn’t care, that it didn’t matter. Another act of trust Reyes would find a way to earn—and happily so. Guilt at that and happiness twined inside of him, pulsing in time with his heartbeat.

Reyes was no longer a blank slate. Andromeda and Scott had written all over him, imprinted on his better and worse natures, changed him in so many ways he sometimes didn’t recognize himself as the Reyes Vidal who operated alone, in the shadows, or behind false names and terminals and representatives.

He’d become something new here.

And he looked forward to finding out what that meant.


End file.
